godzilla vs. kong review
Godzilla vs. Kong is just as loud, dumb and fun as it looks on the surface. Dig deeper and you’ll only find more surface. Think back to Saturday morning cartoons and the basic format they would use to create conflict: uncomplicated, familiar, blunt instrument set-ups requiring essentially zero thought for young, short attention span audiences. The seemingly benevolent corporation harboring a secret. The quietly empathic child who understands the world better than adults. The well-meaning but quacky scientist with a brilliant yet controversial hypothesis which proves true. The conspiracy theorist who as it turns out was right all along. All are tropes of genre storytelling (and cartoons). Tropes are tropes for a reason. They’re effective. The conceit bringing the two iconic behemoths to come to arms with one another in Godzilla vs. Kong is laid out within the first four minutes and it’s comically simple: the world isn’t big enough for them to coexist. They are destined to clash. It’s Red Sox vs. Yankees in the super-animal kingdom. That all said, is the film exciting and visually interesting? Do the action sequences provide enough thrills to justify the two-hour runtime? More or less, yes. But as with any film qualifying as a live action cartoon, I advise you to first take note that the plot is just a flimsy canvas on which to place a mindless film that happens to have huge international mass appeal (which means money). Godzilla vs. Kong probably plays best in an IMAX theater with your friends, a slurpee, and a tub of buttery popcorn…and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s pop culture on celluloid. I know this particular point was talked about leading up to release, but it was distracting how Kong’s size seemed to radically shift up and down depending on the needs and scale of each sequence.
Godzilla vs. Kong is exactly what you think it is. If that is appealing to you, watch it. It’s a 5/10 in the grand scheme of the overall filmic zeitgeist and a 6/10 in terms of leaning into its own absurdity. I respect the fact that there was a definitive victor in the titular contest.